Praça Higienópolis, a high-end residential building located in the Higienópolis neighborhood of São Paulo, with over 21,000 m² of private area, is one of the newest developments by SKR, a real estate developer and construction company partnered with the Cyrela Group. The company has sought partnerships with asset managers such as Kinea and SPX to raise funds for its developments, but in this case, the funding came from Multi Family Office Portofino, which manages approximately R$ 30 billion.
In this project, Portofino acquired a 25% stake, bringing together more than 20 wealthy families—clients with an appetite for real estate assets. The expectation is to achieve an internal rate of return (IRR) of 25% per year. Since 2020, the family office has dedicated an exclusive area to direct investments in the real estate market. In contact with developers, it seeks a minimum IRR of 25% in the residential segment and 18% in logistics.
“Historically, developers have had the practice of seeking family and friends to come on board as investors in development projects, and families like to feel like they own real assets. Now, this is done in a more professional way with our intermediation and curation,” says Leonardo Bersot, Real Estate partner at Portofino MFO.
This type of operation, called co-investment or club deal , in which wealth managers invest directly in an asset, either with an asset management firm or directly in the transaction, is gaining increasing traction in the Brazilian and global markets.
According to Citibank's "Global Family Office Report 2025," 70% of family offices made direct investments worldwide this year. Meanwhile, a BNY Mellon survey, "Investment Insights For Single Family Offices 2025," indicates that nearly two-thirds (64%) expect to make six or more direct investments in the coming year, a 10% increase over the previous period.
Research by Volt Partners , published exclusively by NeoFeed , showed that the number of club deals had doubled last year, reaching 20% of deals. As a result, the average value of investment checks in private equity operations was shrinking, from R$ 56.5 million in 2024 to R$ 41.6 million in 2025.
In Brazil, this strategy is a form of differentiation, since traditional funds have become more accessible and commoditized. As a result, firms that make direct investments have multiplied—and closed more deals .
Origination typically occurs when a lead manager (private equity or private credit) finds an opportunity considered excellent, but cannot concentrate enough capital in a single asset or does not have sufficient resources. Therefore, they contribute what they can through a fund and invite wealth managers to co-invest in another vehicle. On the other side, wealth managers identify families interested in the project, offering exclusive, long-term investment options.
This is how Arton Advisors , with over R$10 billion under management, participated in the retrofit of the former Marina Palace in Leblon, which will house the first Four Seasons hotel in Brazil. The management is handled by the Catuaí group, and construction begins this year, with an expected duration of 36 months and a projected return of over 25% per year.
“Our relationship with asset managers means we are always consulted for the start of any venture, and together with other firms we dilute the risk, even though the ticket size remains high, often R$ 1 million per individual, which is possible because our clients are professional investors,” says Raphael Vieira, co-head of Investments at Arton Advisors.
Investing directly allows families to obtain higher returns by eliminating brokerage and management fees and providing greater visibility into where capital is allocated. It also makes it possible to reduce portfolio duration and choose return timeframes. Unlike a blind pool —where the manager decides alone where to invest—the investor chooses the specific asset.
This, however, implies concentration: a single name can represent a high risk. Unlike a fund, where the manager invests in various assets, this strategy allocates capital to a single business. If it goes wrong, the loss is 100%, as there is no diversification.
“We gave up diversification to gain in return. Our co-investment portfolio, for example, has a 70% annual return in dollars, while in private equity investments it is 15% per year,” says Felipe Nobre, CEO and co-founder of Jera Capital, with R$ 5.5 billion under management, which invested in this way in the American companies OpenAI and DataBricks.
The recommendation is that only very wealthy families should make this type of investment, representing a small percentage of their portfolio, and always with the guidance of a wealth manager, whose expertise and relationships with companies and asset managers are essential. This does not exclude allocation through funds.
The Brainvest family office, with approximately US$6 billion under management, adopts the practice of maintaining 80% of its investments in alternative funds and 20% directly, to add "spice" to its portfolios. The firm makes co-investments in real estate, private equity, special situations, and infrastructure.
“There are some investment theses that we are very convinced of, making it sensible to be more exposed, to have concentration. And when allocating through managers, you never know exactly how much they will allocate and if they will change their minds over time,” says Renzo Malagoli, head of alternatives in Brazil at Brainvest. Examples include investments in Brazilian gold mining companies and mature highway concessions in the state of São Paulo, via Starboard's private equity funds.
This trend gains momentum during periods of high interest rates, when alternative assets need to offer high returns to compete. "Interest rates have been high for a long time, so alternative assets compete with a very high risk-return ratio, needing to yield more to make sense. And, in this scenario, the sophisticated investor seeks real assets with high returns as a diversification strategy," says Wilson Barcellos, CEO of Azimut Wealth Management.
Wealth managers predict that 2026 will be a year of even more opportunities for direct investments. With the slight reduction in interest rates, more deals may materialize, making it more attractive for those raising investments, although liquidity remains limited.
“In the US, family offices allocate 50% of their portfolio to alternatives, and co-investments are part of that, being something much more structured in the industry. Here, this is growing as discretionary management and the appetite for alternatives grow,” says Felipe Nobre, CEO and co-founder of Jera Capital.
For now, the most promising segments for co-investing with asset managers are real estate, infrastructure, special situations, and credit, where families have entered as partners in subordinated shares of FIDCs (Investment Funds in Credit Rights). Meanwhile, the appetite for private equity and venture capital remains low, despite the recent improvement in the industry.
Recent data from Abvcap shows that private equity investments reached R$ 15.9 billion by the third quarter of 2025, in 51 transactions. These figures already surpass those for the entire year of 2024 – R$ 13.3 billion in 72 deals.
In venture capital, the accumulated figure of R$ 4.6 billion represents half of the R$ 9.2 billion invested in 2024. The R$ 2.1 billion recorded in the third quarter marks the highest quarterly volume of 2025 and a jump of 23.5% over the same period of the previous year.
Meanwhile, FIDCs ( Investment Funds in Credit Rights) are among the fastest-growing fund classes in recent years, having more than doubled in size since 2023 and reaching R$773 billion under management. And the real estate segment may be experiencing one of the best moments in its history, moving from a period of high long-term interest rates to a cycle of rate cuts, with the dollar trending downwards, which favors construction.
And it seems that both wealthy families and investment managers are interested in taking advantage of these joint investment opportunities and developing this relationship.
“The next 10 years will be very fruitful for alternatives. Co-investment will go hand in hand with the industry. The asset managers we have the most relationships with in Brazil tend to do 50% in funds/50% in co-investments. And this should continue,” says Malagoli, from Brainvest.
